


A Soldier After All

by Enchantable



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Son Relationship, Violence, jaegercon gift exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are five graves in Sydney. </p><p> </p><p>None have bodies. </p><p> </p><p>One has a slip of paper and a cream colored dress. </p><p> </p><p>One has a blue toothbrush and a jacket with twelve Kaiju on it. </p><p> </p><p>One has a chain with dog tags and a wedding band on it, along with five jackets, all stamped with Kaiju heads.</p><p> </p><p>One has a spiked collar and an eyedropper.</p><p> </p><p>And the last has a scribbled on blue print curled around a marriage certificate, a birth certificate, a receipt from an animal shelter and a picture of three people, a dog and a Jaeger who didn't get the chance to be in the same place at the same time until they all passed on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Soldier After All

**Author's Note:**

> Oh black kettles and black pots,
> 
> Seem to fight an awful lot,
> 
> They make the kitchen the most uncomfortable of rooms,
> 
> Empty words don’t mean a lot,
> 
> And from me that’s all you’ve got,
> 
> But I swear to you darling one day,
> 
> We’ll stand beneath a blue Moon.
> 
> —— Month of Sundays, Passenger

Herc Hansen first discovers he's a survivor at the age of ten. 

 

His father--or what he has for a father anyway--takes him out in the bush in their old jeep, hands him a knife and a compass and tells him to find his way back before driving off. Herc cries for ten minutes and then wipes his cheeks and sets off towards where he thinks home is. It takes him a full day and by the time he staggers into the kitchen his mother is hysterical. His father just grunts. Herc thinks he may have expected him to die, or maybe that's just the whisky talking again. 

 

Whiskey does most of Donovan Hansen's talking for him. 

 

He enlists at the age of seventeen. 

 

It's one part enlistment, one part recruitment and since he came out of his mum a boy, Herc can't remember a time someone wanted him. He's not sure if he agrees so readily to get out of his dad's grip or he agrees so readily to make his dad proud. Doesn't really matter in the end, he signs his name and shows up for training. The fact that his dad sees him off sober and that's a big deal makes him see how fucked up the whole situation is. 

 

He's pushed and broken and pushed some more by faceless men who shout at him. It doesn't bother him really. He's been shouted at before. He climbs and jumps and feels a bit like his namesake when it turns out he can do those things better than most of the men in his group. At night he just sleeps. He doesn't have war stories to trade or pictures to show or a family to write to. Well, he has the last one but he doesn't really think about writing to them. 

 

He's a soldier, that's it. 

 

He takes a plane for the first time at the age of eighteen. It's a shit thing, held together by bolts and a prayer. Herc doesn't mind it so much as he looks at it. He knows that everyone on it is expendable anyway. The thing sputters to life and takes off and suddenly he can't breathe. Not because he's afraid but because he's never felt something so beautiful in his entire fucking life. The ground is tiny and it isn't because of God or Angels or anything like his mum used to tell him. It's because of another person, because someone took a wrench and made it possible. 

 

He puts in his transfer papers the next day. 

 

It's harder than he thinks it will be. To wield that wrench you have to understand numbers and science and shit he's never been good at. He almost fails several times until he figures out to study at night in the shadow of the planes. Having them there, reminding him what he's doing, that helps. He gets better and better and better until one day he's being zipped into a flight suit, pushed into a plane and taken for a ride that leaves him hurling into a waxy bag. He earns his wings the same way everyone else does, he learns where to fit that wrench and how to make the ground fall away. 

 

He cries for the first time since he was ten the day they give him his plane. 

 

It's humiliating but he doesn't care. He's out with the rest of the squad though so he hides in the bathroom until he's got himself under control. Or, almost under control anyway. There's a knock on the door and a terse voice informs him there's a line and he should hurry up. He snaps back that it isn't his fault the damn bar decided to put in proper bathrooms instead of the stalls that would actually make sense. The person on the other side laughs and he joins in because, again, he's so happy. 

 

He opens the door to see the most lovely person he's ever laid eyes on.

 

She's got hair the color of fire and a smile that makes his heart stop. They trade places and he lingers outside the bathroom like some lovesick fool so he won't lose her in the crowd. When she sees him she laughs at him, with him, for him and Herc feels like the air's been knocked out of him. She writes down her number on a slip of paper and the squad has to practically wrestle it from him so he won't call her from inside the damn bar. 

 

Her name's Angela.

 

Herc falls in love with her instantly. Boyishly. But she makes him work for it. Not that he minds, he's a hard worker when it comes to things he loves. He flies his planes and sees his girl and for the first time he can remember he's really, truly happy. Until he gets transfer orders. It's across the country. They're doing something important and they need him. He carries the envelope like a time bomb in his pocket, feeling like an utter coward because he doesn't want to leave his mates and he doesn't want to leave his girl. 

 

Said girl finds the orders when she takes off his jacket and it kills the mood pretty quick. Not because of the orders but because of course she sees the date they were given to him. He quickly learns that Angela doesn't like having secrets kept from her, especially not when they impact her so directly. His mouth goes dry as she presses her lips together and looks at the orders silently. He hates the silence. Angela's so vibrant, so loud in a heart stopping, attention commanding way that to watch her be silent feels wrong. 

 

He asks her to come with him. 

 

She's so stunned that he thinks he did something wrong until his back's on the bed and she's on top of him and then he realizes his instincts are probably worth trusting. He gets there a month before she does and it's the longest fucking month of his life until she shows up. Her hat's askew and her arms are full of bags and he can't get down on his knee fast enough to hold out the ring he's spent three weeks wearing next to his dog tags just to be sure he won't lose it. 

 

They get married a week later. 

 

It's a small ceremony. She invites her parents, he brings a few of his mates. She wears a dress the color of fresh cream with her red hair spilling over her shoulders and his hands shake when he slides the thin band onto her finger. She pushes a circlet of white gold onto his. Later that night when they're tangled in each other's arms she slides it off his finger and loops it onto the chain where he wears his dog tags and presses her lips to his heart. He never calls her Mrs. Hansen, just Angela. 

 

The only thing they fight over is kids.

 

He doesn't want them. 

 

She does. 

 

His old man was a drunk and his old man's man before that. He isn't a drunk, but he's a military man like them and he imagines when he retires that isn't off the table. She loves kids and Herc would get her the moon if he could, but he can't imagine subjecting a kid to having him as a dad. They try to stay away from the topic. She takes little pills and he buys condoms in bulk, just to be safe. One day though she brings up the topic again. It's been a shit day and he kind of loses it just a little, yells just a bit too loud and she looks away with tears in her eyes that dissolve into deep, gasping sobs. The anger falls away as he gathers her in his arms and she weeps.

 

Turns out despite everything she's pregnant anyway.

 

She offers to 'take care of it' and he immediately tells her no. He doesn't want kids but she does and if the kid is stubborn enough to be created despite everything they've done to prevent it, he can't see himself being that much of an ass. She's tentative around him for a while and it takes him too long to realize that she thinks he's angry at her and at the kid inside her. Against everything he wants to do he goes out and finds a book on baby names and tosses it onto his dresser where he's sure she can see it. He doesn't want kids but he'll do this for her. 

 

He doesn't want kids when she begins to show. At first just a gentle bump and then the kid's taken over her entire damn body. He feels it kick and waits for that moment when something'll click, but it never comes. Not when they're looking at names, not when the doctor points out the baby's features, not when they're driving to the hospital at some ungodly hour with Angela looking nervous and excited enough for both of them. He tells himself he's just being strong for her as she gasps and leans against him but a little part of him is mad at the kid for causing her pain. 

 

When the time comes he holds back one of her legs and helps her curl up but his focus is entirely on her. She moans and whimpers and bears down as he grips her hands and tries to will his strength into her. He's a soldier and he knows a losing battle when he sees one. He also knows the smell of blood. People burst into the delivery room and their grip on each other becomes crushing. Doctors shout orders at her and Angela complies instantly. Strange thing is he finds himself complying too, following what the nurse on her other side does to get her and the baby in the right position. Her cries change and he tells himself the leap of his heart is only because the end is almost there. 

 

She falls back into him gasping for air and they both look as the doctor gathers something blue and turns to a nurse and they all descend on it. Herc's a soldier he knows dead and dying when he sees it and he holds Angela a little tighter, praying that she'll be alright when the doctor tells them the news. 

 

And then a mewling sound splits the air. 

 

It's tiny and faint and his heart fucking stops when he hears it. His grip on Angela slackens as he strains his neck. She moves in his arms and gives him a gentle push towards the doctors. He barely remembers how to work his legs as he moves towards them. It's a boy. The baby is wrinkly and small, his tiny fists wave in protest as one of the doctors fits a mask over his face to help him breathe. He's a fighter and as Herc looks down at him he finds himself cheering the baby on. They push the baby away and Angela motions at him to go with them. Not to leave their son alone. He nods and follows the doctors as they wheel him away. 

 

They name him Charles. 

 

He looks exactly like him. 

 

Spitting image. Angela teases him that after all that with him not wanting a baby he winds up with one who looks practically identical. He rolls his eyes as he grins because he can't not grin. Charles is perfect. All fight in him. But he quiets the instant Angela hums, as if the entirety of the world's problems can be solved when his mum hums to him. Charles gets bigger and stronger and soon he's toddling around the house. He's daddy, Angela's mummy and for the first time Herc considers retiring from the military just so he can be around more. He doesn't want to miss anything. 

 

He broaches the subject with Angela and she throws herself into his arms like when he asked her to come with him. She sits in his lap as they scan through information on becoming a commercial pilot and what Herc will need to do. It's still flying, it's doable even if things will be tight for a bit. But then Charles appears at the door rubbing sleep from his eyes and they both decide they can live with things being tight. 

 

And then the Kaiju appear. 

 

Huge, horrific, it's impossible to wrap your mind around what you see on the tv. At least, it is for Herc. The base stands there, paralyzed and watches as the world gets ripped apart. Or, most of them do. Herc's already in his car because he's not going to be sitting around a base when the world ends. He's going to be home with his family. He and Angela meet at Charles' school and the three of them huddle in his car listening to the radio. Charles doesn't understand and Herc feels sick that he can't give him the answers. Angela just holds them both tighter. 

 

Eventually they change the station, eventually it's just music and their breathing that echoes in the car. They stay there parked outside Charles' school for a day while the world ends around them before they make their way home. Words like safe and alright are a distant memory. When the Kaiju dies Herc doesn't feel any better. He's a soldier after all, he knows a thing or two about enemies. This isn't over, he knows it somewhere deep in his gut. 

 

Angela does too. 

 

They try to keep things normal for Charles but the discharge papers he's filled out go back in the desk and their dreams of what life is going to be like get folded away along with them. The military takes care of it's own, especially when that 'own' is someone who displays the neurological readouts they're looking for. He fits some profile. Every time he signs his consent he isn't doing it for himself. He's doing it because the more he's ingrained in whatever they're doing the more protection Angela and Charles get. 

 

He sells himself to them for his family, for the one thing more precious than whatever life can throw at him. 

 

Angela and Charles get protection but it isn't enough. Not in the face of the Kaiju. In the face of that they're all 'acceptable' risks. Sydney is an acceptable loss. He calls Angela as he runs to the chopper, shouting at her to get as far away as she can. Hoping it will be enough. She tells him she'll try but her voice sounds like it's in somewhere with an echo and he knows, he knows she's not going anywhere. 

 

He doesn't offer to come for her. 

 

She wouldn't forgive him if he did. 

 

Charles is uncomprehending when he arrives at the school and grabs him. There are other seats in the chopper for people who won't get there in time so he shoves as many of his classmates in as he can and takes off. They get everyone out and back to the base before the bombs start falling. Charles sits on his lap silently and all the air seems to go out of Herc's lungs when he realizes that he's just waiting. That he believes Herc's strong enough to have saved Angela too because that's what Herc does. 

 

He can't fucking breathe when the realization hits his son that mummy isn't going to be coming through the door. 

 

Charles moves away from him and Herc lets him. He can't move because his wife is dead. She's been crushed by a building from the first string of bombs and he's pretty sure she's been killed by the second. A man tells him that it was the Kaiju and though his voice is steady, Herc can hear the underlying kindness, the pity. He doesn't deserve kindness and he isn't going to take anyone's pity. He drops the folder and punches the man for all he's worth. Hits him until his knuckles are raw and then doubles over sobbing because his wife's dead and he pretty much killed her himself and his son is still missing and he can't do anything about that either. 

 

The other soldier never moves. 

 

When Herc straightens the man's still there. He's utterly unmovable, like a beacon in a storm. He's a fixed point. Herc is gasping for air and the other soldier just meets his gaze. Silently he shows Herc what a soldier in a crisis is supposed to look like. It takes everything Herc has to gather himself, to straighten his spine and calm his breathing and not just fall to his knees screaming because the idea that he's never going to see Angela again is one he can't live with. When he's calm the other soldier pulls out a handkerchief and lets Herc clumsily wipe his face with it. 

 

His name is Stacker Pentecost. 

 

Together they find Charles standing on the helipad looking at the place where his mum's building is supposed to be. Tears are dry on his cheeks but they're there. There's so much tension in him, he looks like he belongs in a military uniform and not his cargo shorts and t-shirt. Stacker Pentecost gets his attention because, as Herc learns, that's what Stacker Pentecost does and introduces himself. Charles tells him his name is Chuck and his voice is a hoarse croak around the words.

 

Chuck never looks at him. 

 

Herc goes down to the belly of the base because the only things Chuck owns are on his back and he needs things like a toothbrush and a change of clothes. Herc's fingers close around a toothbrush as red as Angela's hair before he grabs a blue one instead. Chuck takes those things without a word or a look. Herc lets him take the bed and lays on the floor staring up at the ceiling and remembering. He's got no more tears to cry. 

 

They exist in a haze. 

 

Chuck becomes his shadow. Hate filled and dark and always on the periphery of his vision. He doesn't question why, he just hates. Herc gets into the Jaeger program without any issues and trains. The stronger he gets the more livid Chuck is, like him becoming stronger is an offense. It isn't until years later that Herc realizes Chuck hates that he can be stronger. That he wasn't the strongest the day Angela died. That maybe if he had been he could have saved her. 

 

Things spiral as Chuck battles his grief and Herc is at his wit's end. There's no love between them, nothing that made them a family. There's just hate and hurt and two people standing on islands with blame between them. Honestly, when the Jaeger gets closer to completion Herc realizes he's afraid of what Chuck will do if he's left by himself. That fear is eclipsed only by what he'll do if someone tries to help him. 

 

So Herc gets him the most helpless thing he can think of. 

 

Get as in he goes out to one of the animal shelters that's overflowing with abandoned animals. Gruffly he asks for the one whose next to be killed to make room. He's handed what essentially amounts to a ball of wrinkles. It's a runt. It's tiny and still and the man pushes an eyedropper at him before he can change his mind. Herc looks down at the thing that can essentially fit in his palm and immediately thinks of Chuck who also came into the world tiny and still. 

 

He doesn't give him to Chuck so much as he leaves him out there. 

 

Chuck comes back from punching something and fixes the tiny wrinkled mess with a glare of pure venom. Herc quietly sighs and thinks that at least he gave it a shot and then hates himself a little more because somehow that's acceptable to him now. The alarm sounds and he gets up and walks out without another word, wondering if either of them will still be there when he gets back. 

 

He doesn't expect to find Chuck awake at four am with the eyedropper in one hand, trying to get the puppy to drink, tears in his eyes because it won't. 

 

He looks up at him and for one second he looks like the boy who used to love him. It's enough for Herc to wipe the grease on his pants and cross over. He takes the puppy and holds him, coaxing his little mouth open as Chuck drops liquid in. The puppy scuffs and whines and they both freeze like they've done something wrong. Then he nudges forward. Herc moves with him and Chuck meets them and together the three of them make it work. 

 

Chuck names him Max. 

 

Max turns out to be just as much of an ass as Chuck is. He's loud and heavy and trips people like it's his fucking job. Herc wishes he could send them both to obedience classes. He sends them to Stacker instead and that works better. The pair of them run on the track until Max tires out, then Chuck picks him up and runs a few more with Max panting happily in his arms. 

 

The world limps on around them as Herc loses himself in the machines he pilots. In a Jaeger you can do anything, you can be anything. You're a god. It's fucking sad then when he gets out of the Jaeger and back to his room he feels like he's a coward who can't even talk to his own son. Chuck moves out during the three weeks he spends in intensive care when his first co-pilot dies while still in his mind. He just goes across the hall but the fact that his room is empty now and that makes him breathe easier makes him want to throw up. 

 

Chuck hates him more after that. 

 

He hates him because he's realizing that Herc survives all this shit, but Herc doesn't want to survive it. If he could have swapped places with Angela he'd do it in a second. He doesn't want to be alive but that doesn't change the fact that he is. Alive and kicking and he hates it more than he can put into words. Chuck is getting taller and broader by the day as Max gets wider and less wrinkly and he feels like a stranger to both of them. 

 

His second co-pilot dies. 

 

It only pisses him off because it gets him grounded. Because losing one person inside your head is enough to ruin a man. Problem is that the pilots who get ruined are bright eyed, they still have hope. They still think there's a world for them to save. When they're broken, they're shattered into a million tiny pieces and put aside to live out their lives as best they can. 

 

No-one has any idea what to do with people like him, people who are already shattered. 

 

People dying in his head isn't new to him. Not after Angela died on the other end of the phone and Charles died in his arms. He was too weak to get to them in time, too weak to hold them together. He's already broken bits, having them break a little more isn't going to kill him or anything. They put him back on active duty the same day Chuck declares he's going to be a Jaeger pilot. He doesn't say like his dad, he just announces it. 

 

That night Herc drinks whiskey for the first time and wonders what Angela would think of them now. 

 

Tamsin dies and Stacker, the big damn war hero, shows up with a wisp of a girl who Herc vaguely recognizes from some article in a newspaper. She looks at him and he sees her broken pieces too. They aren't pounded by anger like Chuck's or dealt with like Stacker's. They're raw and grating like his. He likes her immediately. She doesn't talk often which makes him like her even more. They sit together for long stretches of time with the Jaegers beneath their toes as she practices writing out the English alphabet. 

 

Chuck gets jealous. 

 

Well he gets angrier but jealously is something Herc understands. Chuck doesn't want to sit with him high up on the rafters and look at Jaegers. And he doesn't seem to understand that Herc wants to do that with him, but can't push him. Instead he breaks a huge rule on classification and brings the blueprints for the Mark V's to his room and leaves the door open. Chuck wanders in and Herc can practically feel the anger receded when he sees them. He doesn't recognize the peace offering, but Herc doubts he would if the blue prints grew legs and kicked him between his. He is enamored though.

 

It's the happiest Herc's seen him in years. 

 

It's enough that when Chuck takes a fucking pen and actually edits the blue prints Herc doesn't strangle him. When Stacker shows up at Chuck's door, Herc's all set to defend him but actually Stacker is there for clarification because apparently the engineers like some of Chuck's ideas. He gives him a job offer and Chuck negotiates it down to a year. He wants to pilot the Jaeger, not just build her. Stacker agrees before he looks back at Herc who can't really say anything. It's Chucks life after all. 

 

Chuck gets taller and broader still and so damn angry Herc can only think of his own dad and wonders if maybe he wasn't so broken he'd be damn angry too. He outlives a third co-pilot before Chuck goes to the Jaeger academy. They nod at the entrance and Chuck goes inside, Max at his heels, leaving Herc to wonder if he's ever going to see either of them again. He wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't, Chuck's capable of vanishing and Herc still isn't sure why he's stuck so close all these years. 

 

He's traumatized. 

 

Herc knows it and when the report comes in Chuck knows it too. Everything is exemplary but his head's a dark place. It's full of rage and hate and sorrow he refuses to acknowledge. The psych staff strongly recommends he be removed from the program. In the infirmary Herc thinks of the way his last co-pilot's mind felt as it died, of the satisfaction it had that split second before it imploded. Only thing the kid wanted to be was a hero. He got that and he died content. Herc thinks of Chuck and how the only thing he wants to be is a pilot. 

 

He can't give him shit but he can give him a shot at that. 

 

Stacker raises his eyebrows but Herc makes a compelling argument. Chuck objects loudly and Herc barks at him that he's got two choices. Become and engineer or be his copilot. It's the most like a dad he's sounded in years and Chuck's face says it all. Even Max shuts up. Jerkily Chuck chooses being his copilot and the two head to the Kwoon on what looks to be a fool's mission. Except it isn't because they've never been more than a hall's length from each other for longer than a few weeks. They know how the other moves. 

 

Chuck graduates the academy the same day Striker Eureka is moved to active duty. 

 

They rise together. 

 

Herc changes Striker Eureka's logo to Max. He can't tell Chuck how proud he is of him. But he can do that. He tries to remember how to sew and manages to get the patch onto the jacket he tosses Chuck. Everyone in the academy knows why he's graduating early. Chuck wears the jacket over his uniform despite the heat and Herc does the same. There's no point in trying to hide it anyway. 

 

They're locked into Striker and she's humming to life around them. Chuck's as green as his suit but Herc doesn't call him out on it. He's a bit sick too. The other pilots were assigned to him but Chuck is--Chuck's his son. Chuck openly hates him and now he's about to go in his head. Herc's not sure either of them are ready for this. But the Kaiju are projected in twelve hours and they've got to test run before it happens. 

 

The neural handshake engages, their minds meld together. 

 

And Chuck finally discovers that the only person who hates Herc Hansen more than him is Herc himself. 

 

He doesn't want to be alive. He's stayed for his son, not because he wants to be there and the hate filled yell Chuck gives is much better than what he deserves.The guilt and the pain and the sorrow all churn and though Herc pulls them back with everything in him, it's too late. Angela's in his head and Chuck's yelling and he shouts at them to end the simulation at the same time Chuck demands they keep going. It's like being on a boat in a hurricane. No, it's like falling off a boat in a hurricane and the waves close over their heads because this feels like drowning. 

 

With a resounding crash, Striker drops her knee.

 

The emotion buckles her. Through the comm link he hears Chuck taking choked gasps of air. He wants to crawl into a hole and die. But he can't. Because he is a survivor. Instead he forces himself to breathe normally. To be steady, steady enough for both of them. He meets the anger and the hate with a steady line, he holds it. He tries to be everything Stacker is in his head. Fixed point, fixed point. And like he did once, Chuck lashes out at him with every tortured thought. 

 

Herc holds still. 

 

Like he did when he was a child, Chuck tires himself out eventually. Eventually their emotions quiet and sync. Eventually they get Striker to her feet. Eventually they take the first steps in the Jaeger, they run their weapons check and they stand fast as the churn of their emotions quiets into something inky and dark. Chuck isn't tempered by his own mind as much as he is by the machine. Striker calms him, Striker is him. Herc watches out of the corner of his eye. He almost wonders what Angela would think of them but Chuck's mind lashes out at him. 

 

He doesn't think of Angela again while they're connected. 

 

Chuck marks their first Kaiju kill with a scratch on his breastplate that pisses the techs off. So he replaces it with paint. He paints it on both their armor and Herc finds himself amused by it. Chuck doesn't like his amusement until he drawls out the question of what they're going to do when they run out of room on the breastplate. Chuck shrugs and says they've got the entirety of the armor and the Conn Pod when they run out of that. The thought would amuse him more if he didn't feel pride coming off Chuck, pride that his dad believed in him enough to ask. 

 

There's no lying in the drift. 

 

The distance outside stays the same but in the Conn Pod with the adrenaline and the other mind, they feel like a family. Chuck starts to think about Angela and Herc lets the memories wash over him. He's always thought she was beautiful but the way she is in Chuck's head makes her seem even more like an angel. Herc's not sure if he ever believed in heaven, but he thinks there must be somewhere for people like her when they're gone. 

 

The world comes damn close to ending. 

 

Damn close and then Becket comes back, Gipsy rises and Miss Mori becomes a hero. He shoots a Kaiju with a flare gun and finds out that even Striker has her limits. And then Stacker appears in his drift suit looking like something out of a fairy tale and Herc knows that his boy is going to die. Stacker gives some rousing speech to the rest of the group but Herc's focused on Chuck. Chuck shouldn't have to die. There's a world out there for him, a world he can make his own. But Chuck is Striker, Striker is Chuck and the pair of them rose together. They'll fall together too. 

 

That's exactly what happens.

 

They don't fall. They erupt and Herc remembers what true glory looks like. He was a better soldier than his old man, but Chuck becomes a better soldier than the last several generations put together. Stacker goes with him, only making him brighter in his final moments. Herc stops the clock, he listens to the cheers and greets Raleigh and Mako when they come back. He doesn't bother to hide the mix of emotions on his face and no-one questions him. After all, he's a soldier, He knows a victory when he sees one. 

 

When things quiet he goes to Sydney where Angela's grave is marked. Only thing buried there is a slip of paper with a handful of digits that don't work anymore and a dress the color of cream. He buries a worn leather jacket with twelve Kaiju heads pressed onto it and a blue toothbrush Chuck's never thrown out next to it. Max stands next to him and they look at the graves for a good long while. He's never been one for believing in heaven, but if there's a place for someone like Angela then Chuck's there too. 

 

"Don't leave him alone," he says gruffly to Angela's headstone, repeating the words she said to him.

 

It's her turn to watch him after all.

 

Max barks and Herc lowers himself down. They sit on the empty graves for a good long while, just feeling the sun and the warmth and Herc sighs because he's alive still and he shouldn't have expected any different even if he kind of hoped for it. But he's a soldier and he knows a survivor when he sees one, even if that's just when he looks in a mirror. After a good long while Herc gets to his feet and dusts off his pants. He leaves the graves behind and soldiers on. 

 

He takes credit for everything. 

 

Literally everything. The weapons, the plan, the Jaegers. All of it. It's all his fault. He swears on his eternal soul because that's already shot to shit. During one congressional hearing he says he blackmailed Stacker with tea and bribed the techs with Tim Tams and anything else. He doesn't care. He'll be their scapegoat, just so long as none of the others take the blame. He answers questions about sending his son to die and tells the world he let his wife die to save him. He wants to do something but the only thing he can do is make sure that the heroes stay that way. 

 

He lies and he thinks about becoming an alcoholic but decides against it. He goes to jail for a bit and pays some fines. He sets up the research facility for the shatterdome and goes to meetings with the brass in a t-shirt and his worn cargos, Max at his side. His life's still governed by the same routine. He gives speeches and appears at memorials. His hair goes grey and his eyes get tired but he continues on, Max lumbering along with him. They both lose their vision slowly, their ears getting harder. 

 

He brings them to Sydney before it's too late. 

 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

There are five graves in Sydney. 

 

None have bodies. 

 

One has a slip of paper and a cream colored dress. 

 

One has a blue toothbrush and a jacket with twelve Kaiju on it. 

 

One has a chain with dog tags and a wedding band on it, along with five jackets, all stamped with Kaiju heads.

 

One has a spiked collar and an eyedropper.

 

And the last has a scribbled on blue print curled around a marriage certificate, a birth certificate, a receipt from an animal shelter and a picture of three people, a dog and a Jaeger who didn't get the chance to be in the same place at the same time until they all passed on. 

 

There are five graves in Sydney. 

 

Dedicated to three soldiers, two hearts and five survivors. None have bodies because only two were found and they're in the ocean with the others now. Together at long last. There are five graves in Sydney that watch over the rest of the dead, and depending on who you ask, they watch over the living as well. One gets flowers, one gets dog bones, two get Vegemite and someone always leaves spark plugs or stuffed Kaiju on the fifth.

 

There are five graves. 

 

 

None are empty.

**Author's Note:**

> For [Orysbaratheon ](http://orysbaratheon.tumblr.com/) who got me as their gift partner in the Jaegercon gift exchange: 


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